Flandy

Hi all, be kind, this is the first time I've actually started a topic here, and shared pics of my lego fumblings. I've been away from lego for 20 years, and then my GF bought me the lego millenium falcon for christmas, and it's totally rekindled my love (for Lego, not the GF, I loved her already...). Like many, I found the S-foils on the most recent T-70 X-wings rather underwhelming. The X-wings in the movie look so cool, aggressive, dynamic, and the new engine pods and the way the wings fold to become one single plane in cruise mode is very slick indeed. The Lego version is significantly less slick in this regard, and this bothered me. As is well documented, the wings don't even meet, let alone combine into one, the lower wing is studs down, which means the ugly plate underside is on show, and the dreaded blue rubber bands, both look out of place at the back of the engine pods, and pull the wings at an angle. I will say that I like the folding mechanism as a play function, and did not want to loose it. So first off, the closed position: When they're closed, there is no gap, no angle difference, and to all intents and purposes, it appears as though it's one single wing, just as it should. And now, open Again, no angle change due to rubber band tension. The bands are still being used, but I found a way to integrate them such that they pull the wings closed as they should, but not unevenly, and within the forward profile of the wings so that they're not obvious. In fact they now look like some kind of power cables on the engine undesides. Here's some close ups: I'll go into more detail on this tomorrow if anyone's interested, but essentially the now studs up lower wings have some 2x1 modified plates with pin loops with pins going into 1x1 technic bricks as the method of attaching them, with one of the pins sticking out for the bands to locate on. The bands then go around the back of another pin that replaced a cream coloured short pin on the body of the ship, then go up inside the upper wing engine where there's one of thes guys for them to hook on to: It has as much tension as the original system, but looks alot slicker, though i will admit it is a bit trickier to put together. the bands also seem to hold the lower wing onto the engine a bit too, which is nice. The rear landing gear is rubbish on the original, and i wanted something that would retract cleanly. The real ship has landing gear that emerges from the slopes between the curved engine and the wing. This seemed impossible to duplicate at this scale, and with the stuff for the new folding mechanism, so did landing gear on the engines too, so i mounted it to the body, at its widest part. It folds up and becomes part of the body curve at the back, which is nice. I apologise for the crappy lighting, again, I'll get better pics if there's interest. I may swap the grey part for black, but I don't have any at the moment. Elsewhere on the ship, I moved the cockpit back one stud, and started playing around reprofiling the nose a little. This is the next area for my attention and is a work in progress. Please feel free to comment, I'm open for any constructive criticism!

Thoroughly enjoyed building Slave 1, even if it did benefit from the strengthening mod, but I didn't have to build an extra stand for it, or build it's own bloody shelf, so it scores over the Falcon!

Wow that's incredible, I think the belly button is my favourite detail!

This may have to be the Star destroyer I build, it seems as close to perfect as a display model in this size as you're likely to get.

Just found this set on ebay, with just the R2 figure, but otherwise boxed, bagged, and unbuilt, for a £45 saving on the new price! Liking ships/vehicles more than minifigs pays off quite regularly!

Having done the colour swap, and wing mod on the previous version, I'm loathe to spend on this one, but I might look into replicating the wing folding mechanism as it's pretty neat.

UCS Gonk droid

When on of the reasons I dislike the sequel trilogy is that they have such unoriginal and derivative ships and craft, then I would say yes it does influence my lack of recent purchases. Here in the UK we're being made to wait until March before we get the disney streaming service, which is painful when so many are raving over how good it is!

I honestly think that's better than either the R2-D2, or BB-8 you pictured it with.

Well I'll be darned, the pics all seem to be back up! Has photobucket had a change of heart? Good video btw Kozikyo86

yep, that works, looks like a neat mod, nice one!

Can't see pics, "not allowed"

I have some time this week, I'll try and upload all the pics somewhere else. This whole photobucket thing has been a major Pain in the big behind! I've been crazy busy at work so this has been a low priority but I'll see what I can do. There will be significatly less pics than before so you'll have to work some bits out for yourself. Happy holidays!

The worms are out already, there's no point pretending this isn't happening. There are going to be a lot of potential customers that will see "Temporarily out of stock" for the next few weeks (months?) and go the Lepin route instead, and while I despise the lack of scruples of these Chinese copycats, I feel like Lego only have themselves to blame this time. If they'd let people pre-order in advance of release, and metered them out at one per customer, or household, then there would be an awful lot less annoyed potential customers out there. As it is, it seems like it will be 2018 before anyone wanting to order one will even be able to place said order. Meanwhile the Chinese will be making out like bandits. I know that Lepin is a touchy subject on here but I really hope Lego is reading this and learns from their mistakes. Launching one of the most eagerly anticipated sets the way they did was stupid, and has left many disappointed, and many others are making a fortune selling on the extra sets they bought due Lego's production ineptitude.

I notice that the Chinese copy of this set is going to be available soon. Well done LEGO on screwing up this release so badly that the counterfeit maker is going to get production going before you can. I hope this doesn't harm sales, but I really do feel that they've shot themselves in the foot this time. £150 for the copy, or £650 for the real thing............................

This is absolutely fantastic! Very nice work sir!

If those Pirate ship parts are still going for good money, this is a good way to offset the cost of your UCS falcon! In fact, if you sell the OT printed dish and the masts that's a big chunk of money!

I don't mind any of the vehicles, but I find the Lego incarnations over priced and too "studdy". It looks like a directive came from head office to have more visible studs so where there could be smooth surfaces that would add to the realism (without loosing all studs that identify sets as Lego) they just put regular plates. The gorrilla walker is particularly aflicted. I guess that opens them up to modification, but it's a bit annoying. That plus the prices has put me off so far.

It's insane, people are mad!

1 VIP point is worth 5p here in the UK, so on a £650 set, the VIP points are worth £32.50. during a double VIP points event that's £65 and when triple points are in effect that's £97.50 ! Just wait people! The clamor to buy it will die down, and if you don't intend to build it immediately, what's there to loose? The only people who NEED this set ASAP are the scalpers who are profiting from the lack of availability right now.

There most definitely should have been a limit of 1. NOBODY but scalpers need more than 1 on day one. They should also have some sort of pre-order system to prevent this mad rush and instant sell out. I realise that Lego has sold out of all its initial production (or release, I suspect they're holding more back for october 1st) but at least it would have prevented the website crash, and the unhappy potential customers.

I'm gonna wait for double or triple VIP points, at that price they start having serious value, and I don't have anywhere to put a built Falcon until I've made some kind of mega-shelf!

Absolutely, any secondary market values are of no concern to Lego, so their goal is shift as many Falcons as possible, it makes no sense to alienate potential buyers by making a limited run. They want to make as many sets as people want.

Lego is undoubtedly a good investment, but when there is a likely shortage of a new and very much anticipated set, with the high probability that many will go without as Lego try to keep up with demand, you can imagine that someone saying they're going to buy 5 might just rub people the wrong way. One persons good investment is anothers over priced discontinued set. Most toys decrease in value for years and decades before rarity and desirability drives their value up. Lego is very much the exception and part of it is down to scalpers. That's why your statement might have annoyed people. There's no law against buying as many sets as you want, but if you ever buy an old discontinued set at greater than retail value, you have to accept that you are part of the reason why.

Same here, mine's solid as a rock over a year later.